Today was another great day in Morocco. We were up early, ate breakfast, and departed for Essaouira. The drive there was BEAUTIFUL. Green fields as far as the eye could see, with several small villages along the way. Right before Essaouira, there was a panoramic viewpoint and we took lots of pictures of the city and the beach from above. Also, there were several camels there, so some of the people on our trip went camel-riding. Then, we came to Essaouira. A local guide named Rasheeda climbed onto the bus. Essaouira is a beautiful, small coastal town. We saw a few small monuments, and then had some free time to go shopping. I was not interested in anything there (it was an expensive silver store), so we wandered around. There was a HUGE tree near the store, so we took some pictures, and then waited for all the shoppers. Next, we went to lunch. It was a seafood restaurant on the beach, so once again, Achal and I were screwed. We ended up eating steamed vegetables and couscous. I ordered the local soda (called Hawai, it’s a tropical soda), and we ate some food but I was not full. Then, we walked outside and checked out the beach. The water was brown from sediment from the river, so it looked very strange indeed. There were a lot of people windsurfing and Rasheeda told us they had a world championship here once a year, which was very interesting. Our time here was limited, so we waved goodbye to our guide and the town, and departed for Safi.
The drive to Safi took us along the coast. It was amazing! There were tall cliffs with the beach below. We also saw some huge phosphorous plants. Morocco is the number 1 exporter of phosphorous actually, and it is mainly used as an ingredient in fertilizer. After about 2 hours, we arrived in Safi. The city is famous for its pottery, so we checked out a few shops, and then a local guy took us on a tour to see how the pottery is made. We saw a man making the pottery from scratch. It was really cool. Basically, he had a huge mound of clay that was spinning (he used his foot to spin the base with a foot pedal), and he used his hands to mold the clay and make pottery. He even let one of the girls try it out to make her own small pot. It was a great experience. We returned to the bus, and realized 2 people were missing, Lindsay and Emily, actually. We waited about 10 minutes, and had to send out a small search party. Finally they came back. Our trip leader was upset, and gave us all a lecture on how we shouldn’t be late. I felt really bad for the 2 girls, though, because they had a legitimate reason to be late. They were buying something, and the shopkeeper gave them back fake money as change. So, they argued, and had to wait to get their money back. So, it was a pretty embarrassing experience for them, and we all told them it was ok. We drove to our hotel, called Atlantique Panorama. We had to fill out some forms, and then Achal and I headed up to our room. It was very similar to the last hotel, just not as nice. We also realized the hotel was in the middle of NOWHERE. We went down to the front desk to ask them if there was anything to do in the area, and after every question we asked, we got a “No.”Actually, the only thing that existed near the hotel was a building that said “Night club”which we thought was hilarious. So, we got a group of SAS kids together and played cards for several hours. It was a good bonding experience with the other people on our tour, and had a great time. Soon, it was time for dinner, and we went upstairs to eat, you guessed it, more couscous and steamed vegetables. After dinner, we decided to play more cards. Our guide told us the “Night club”opened at 0030 (12:30 AM), and several of us were curious just to see what the heck was inside (it had no name). We played more cards, and it was great. We played a new game called peanuts, and it was like 8 way solitaire in teams. It was a LOT of fun. At about 0015, we decided to just walk to the building (it was pretty much part of the hotel) and see what was inside (there were about 7 of us). We walked inside, and saw some stairs that went down into the basement. We took them down, and then saw another set of stairs, so we went down again. And there, 2 floors below ground there was a large room that was pretty nice. It was very interesting and very weird at the same time. But, they had a LIVE Moroccan band playing. We sat there for a while and listened to the band. They were singing in Arabic, and the music was excellent. We left after a while, came back to the hotel, and passed out.
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